Crazy, VA

by Hill, Shannon

  Uncle Littlepage gave a grunt. “Someone,” he said idly, “was told to clean that building. Now, we do not know who did this,” he gestured at the graffiti, “but that thief responsible for stealing the golf cart…”

  An LP Inc groundskeeper in khakis and blue shirt scurried up at the silent summons. “Ratty hair, needs a shower, jeans and a black t-shirt.”

  That narrowed it down to all the teenaged boys in the damn county. “Anything else?”

  “Did a Rebel yell.”

  As he zoomed off on a golf cart capable of going maybe 15 miles an hour if its battery was fully charged. Now that narrowed it down. I sighed. “Which way’d he go?”

  The guy pointed down Littlepage Road. On cue, my radio squealed at me. “Yeah, Kim, I know,” I said wearily, startling her into a squawk. “Golf cart on Main. It’s Sean Brady. Call his house and tell his mom to keep him there for me, okay?”

  Uncle Littlepage’s eyes went briefly, flatteringly wide. “You know…”

  I nodded, without smugness. It wasn’t hard to figure out. Any other troublemaker would’ve stolen a car and given a good Rebel yell. Only Sean Brady would steal a golf cart and do the same. The kid was very smart, when he wasn’t being very stupid.

  Boris hissed. When a cat hisses like that, he commands all attention. I looked around, automatically grabbing for my gun. Boris hissed again, crouching low with his ears back and a warning snarl. I followed his gaze.

  Mary Palmer Littlepage approached. Tapping a riding crop against one leg, though her face was all smooth and mildly pleasant thanks to the wonders of modern cosmetic surgery and its botulism-derived alternatives.

  “Easy, baby,” I said to Boris as I picked him up. Being a cat, he immediately fought me, thinking I’d keep him from fleeing. Or attacking. Or, with Boris, both. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Littlepage.”

  She tossed me a fleeting, disdainful smile. “Sheriff. I hope you’re here to find our vandal.”

  “Him too,” I said, and nodded quick farewells as I carried a very unhappy Boris to the cruiser. He squirmed around to keep his mismatched glare fixed on Mary Littlepage, his tail whipping back and forth. I swiveled my head to study her more closely. That little riding crop was tap-tap-tapping with a rhythm that set my teeth on edge. It might as well have been the timer on a bomb going tick-tick-tick.

  I went to deal with Sean Brady.

  ***^***

  The Bradys are a numerous family in this area. Generally mean, as Tom points out, but not usually stupid. Or at least, stupid in a special way. Sean is Eddie’s son, and at thirteen, looked ready to follow in his father’s shuffling footsteps. His mom, born a Rush, had him in a killer grip when I arrived. She had one hand knotted in his admittedly ratty hair, and the other knotted in his underwear. If the kid moved, he’d be bald. Or a soprano.

  “What,” thundered Paula, “did he do?”

  “Stole a golf cart. Which I’ve recovered,” I assured her. A technical lie. The golf cart, having run out of juice, sat abandoned at the corner of Third and Main. “But he stole it from the Littlepages.”

  By the grip on his underwear alone, she hefted her son clean off the ground. “You stole? From the Littlepages?”

  He whimpered as his sneakers hit the front porch again. “Mo-om…”

  She flung him at me. “Worthless piece of no-good shit trash,” she spat. “Just like your father. Well, not in my house!”

  I caught him in one hand, while Boris browsed obliviously in the flowerbeds. “Paula,” I warned. “He’s not Eddie yet.”

  Paula folded arms over her breasts and glowered at her son, who hung limp in my grasp. “Well, he’s sure as hell not gonna be any better if he keeps doing this shit!”

  “You paint the garage, Sean?”

  He shook his head. Sullenly. Miserably. Honestly. He was, at the moment, so scared he couldn’t lie. I’d have worried he might soil himself, but Paula had his underwear wedged in there so tight I doubted he could walk.

  I used my Big Voice. “A golf cart, Sean?”

  He shrugged.

  “From the Littlepages?”

  Another shrug.

  I let him have a hand free, so he could yank his BVDs back into their proper place. “What were you doing up there in the first place?”

  “Dare.”

  The usual dare these days was to get up to the security guard and gate at the Ellers. I knew better than to ask who dared him‌—‌I had a mental list anyway‌—‌and chose instead to demand, “What dare?”

  “Go see where she died.”

  Ah. Halloween approacheth. And with it, adolescent hormones mixed with imagination to create a whole new brand of teenaged idiocy.

  “And the golf cart?”

  “Had to prove I was there.”

  I exchanged looks with his mother. A woman ever married to Eddie Brady for any period of time has to have a good sense of humor, and I saw her lips dancing under a desperately maintained frown. I struggled to hold onto my composure, asking gently, “You couldn’t just take a picture?”

  There it was in his face, that special stupidity. “Oh,” he said, and his mother bolted inside, slammed the door. He looked after her, stricken. “Is Mom crying?”

  I knew those weren’t sobs being muffled in the couch cushions, but I decided to let Sean stew a while. “Yep.”

  He crumbled. “Oh.”

  “C’mon,” I said, and put him in the backseat. “Let’s go work this out.”

  CHAPTER 14

  There are times I hate being female. Once a month, to be precise. And I hate being female for a good 24 hours, which is how long it takes to get over what Aunt Marge delicately calls the unpleasant inevitability of biology. I just wish I could take something stronger than plain old ibuprofen.

  Add to that the chaos of Aunt Marge helping prepare floats for the town’s annual Halloween Parade, to kick off the Halloween Fair, and I was not having a good day. I made a gallon‌—‌yes, an actual gallon‌—‌of ginger-raspberry leaf tea, poured it into a range of thermoses, and stomped to the cruiser past a bizarre contraption of chicken wire and little squares of tissue paper. Aunt Marge, with half a dozen teenagers of the St. Luke’s Youth Group, was hard at it with glue and giggles. The idea this year was famous movies. Last year it had been famous presidents. Another year, the theme was famous monsters. From the look of it, Aunt Marge had gotten the Wizard of Oz float. Wobbly rainbow arch perched on a flatbed that had seen better days, in the old carriage house, which had also seen better days. I waved briefly, got Boris situated, and slammed on the accelerator before I gave in to the urge to turn the garden hose on the thing.

  Boris knew I wasn’t feeling a hundred percent, and radiated happy loving vibes. It’s hard to stay pissed when your cat’s making googly eyes at you. I finally succumbed, and told him how wonderful he was, while sitting at my speed trap by Junior’s. It was Saturday morning, and I wouldn’t need to worry about traffic until nine-thirty or so. That’s when the early birds‌—‌and wise mothers‌—‌would head up to Charlottesville, to arrive as soon as possible after the opening of the various megastores and malls.

  Meanwhile, the Littlepages would have their fox hunt. That’s not a typical amusement around here. It’s more a piedmont thing. Residue of the plantation mystique and the Lost Cause and all that Hollywood crap. Mountain folk were divided at best, and around here, only Ellers and Littlepages had been ardent Confederates. They were, incidentally, the only significant slave-owners. As Aunt Marge told me, the states’ rights argument only holds up if you ignore that the right the states wanted was the right to own slaves. She said that once to this old portly snob on the Board of Trustees at University of Virginia, and his expression was priceless. So was the silence after he’d sputtered and stuttered and finally couldn’t come up with any better retort than, “It was an economic matter.” But people love that Gone With the Wind ideal of genteel living, and conveniently forget that most of their ancestors wouldn’t have been let on Tara’s front
porch. Which brings me nicely back to the fox hunt at the Littlepages, and the Littlepages themselves.

  Once Sean Brady sniffled his apologies, Uncle Littlepage agreed not to press charges provided the boy was suitably punished. Cousin Jack, in a fit of humanity, suggested Sean work off his sin by performing some community service, like sweeping Main Street clean after the Halloween parade. With a barn broom. Which beats doing time in a juvenile facility for grand theft golf cart. If he didn’t get beat up, he’d get laughed to death.

  Mary Littlepage had shrilled, so that Boris’s ears lay flat, “He should be arrested and charged and sent to jail!”

  “Now that,” I told Boris as we sat at our speed trap enjoying the scents of fall drifting down the mountains, “is interesting. She’s all forgiveness for Cynthia Biggs, but Sean Brady’s eligible for the death penalty.”

  Purring, Boris couldn’t care less. As far as he was concerned, it had all ended well. Sean had his punishment, Paula had a very repentant son, the street would be free of debris, and Boris had gotten canned lobster for supper. I was the only one not happy, besides Mary Littlepage.

  “The problem,” I told Boris as I watched Josie Shifflett whip past at her usual ten miles per hour over the speed limit, “is that I can’t arrest someone just because they rub me the wrong way.”

  I hit the siren and pulled Josie over half a mile down the road. She glared at me in her rear-view mirror, acrylic nails clicking impatiently on her steering wheel. Her teenagers were not making life any easier. One had his MP3 player turned up so loud I could hear every discordant note of some raucous thrash tune, and the other had her cell phone out, taking pictures of the event to send to all her friends.

  “Step out of the car, ma’am.”

  She stepped out. We’d been in school together. She was a few years older, and looked fifty. Mostly her expression, I think, though the over-permed hair didn’t help. Neither did the black eyeliner.

  I took her license and registration. She leaned on her car, nails clicking, mouth askew.

  “Josie,” I said as I ambled back to her car, where Boris was sniffing curiously at her tires, “you know that’s your third ticket. We’re talking revocation of license here.”

  “So give me a warning, I gotta get to the mall.”

  To buy more crap for kids who’d never gone wanting a minute in their lives. Thinking they’d always have and always get, more attached to strangers they knew by e-mail than to real people, and parented more by their electronics than the people who’d given them their DNA.

  My temper popped like a bad pimple.

  “Get your daughter out here.”

  “Shandra! Get your butt out here!”

  Shandra slouched. Only teenagers can make slouching a form of propulsion. “What? I’m on the phone.”

  I took the phone, slapped it shut. Boris viewed this with great interest.

  “It’s against the law in this county to talk on a cell phone in the car.”

  Shandra popped her gum. “Well, duh, I wasn’t driving.” She gave me that sarcastic eye-roll teenagers save for those they view as dinosaurs.

  I grinned. “Actually, dear, the statute says no cell phone use while the motor vehicle is in motion. It doesn’t care who’s driving.”

  Josie went rigid with rage. “You can’t…”

  I did. I wrote Shandra out a ticket with a nice $150 fine, handed Josie her speeding ticket, and took both her license and her registration. “You can walk home from here.”

  Their faces matched: magenta, with stunned eyes and jerking jaws.

  Josie’s son got out of the car. “What’s going on?” he whined. “I gotta get to the store.” At sight of his mother and sister, he grunted. “Totally random.”

  “You,” I told him, “had better start walking home. Your mother’s car is going to be impounded as soon as I call Delbert.”

  When Josie’s arm pulled back, Boris pounced. He got a jaw-lock on the flesh at the back of her thigh, wrapped his forelegs around as best he could, and started pumping his hind feet into her calf. But Josie had given birth. She could endure pain. She reached around, shrieking, and before I could get hold of her, she had flung Boris into traffic.

  The oncoming pickup stopped in a thick cloud of smoking rubber and brake pads. Boris, hair on end, crouched low in expectation of death, and stayed very still even after I picked him up and set him gently in his car seat. After a long minute, he gulped water from the hanging bottle, and mewed a tiny kitten-noise of distress. I hushed him with a caress and a croon, before turning my wrath on Josie Shifflett.

  She’d driven off. With her kids. And without her license or registration. Simmering, I got on the radio. If Rucker’s clowns missed her, Nelson County would get her. Or Albemarle would. She’d tried to hit a sheriff, and she was driving without license or registration, but more than all that, she’d tried to kill my cat. As I drove Boris to Dr. Mitchell for a quick check-up, I promised myself that if Boris had suffered any lasting harm, I’d see to it Josie Shifflett spent the rest of her life in court.

  ***^***

  As it happened, Josie Shifflett was stopped and arrested by the county police not ten miles down the road. Any sympathy she might have won was lost when the story went around she’d thrown Boris into traffic. That Boris escaped without injury wasn’t important. Boris the Deputy Cat gave Crazy that little extra edge of insanity it didn’t really need. Therefore, he was to be treasured, even if some individuals didn’t think much of him, or found his presence in my cruiser to be an embarrassment. When Aunt Marge further spread the tale of my fining Shandra for talking on her cell phone, every parent of every teenager in the county practically cheered. I even got three compliments in the next week’s Gazetteer.

  Meanwhile, the town was gearing up for Halloween. You couldn’t buy a pumpkin or anything orange or black anywhere in the county, and Green’s Pharmacy ran out of candy for three days. Any woman who could sew, or had a sewing machine, suddenly had her hands full trying to make costumes for the people on the floats, or those who’d entered the pet-person costume contest. And every can of spray paint half-forgotten in garages and closets abruptly saw daylight, or moonlight as the case might be. The usual original slogans on bridges, buildings, any flat vertical surface not moving: Dracula Lives. The Monster. Say Eeek. Someone‌—‌I suspect Heather Shifflett‌—‌spray painted the side of Junior’s building with the slogan You don’t have to be crazy to live here, but it helps! For some reason, maybe the fact it was done with some real talent, we allowed that to stay. The rest kept Maury busy with paint thinner and a scrub brush. For my part, I asked Marti Green to keep an eye on anyone under 40 buying toilet paper, and waited for the usual hell to break loose.

  A few days after Josie Shifflett’s arrest, I got home to find the float finished. Bits of sticky tissue paper had been‌—‌what’s the word?‌—‌pomped into the rainbow arch, with the float covered by yellow and green paper, and the wheels by black. Aunt Marge and a last stubborn helper were standing back admiring it when Boris backed up to it and lifted his tail.

  Aunt Marge screamed. “NO!”

  Boris started, then gave Aunt Marge a long, cold stare before he sat down and began washing his shoulder as if he’d intended that all along. A hand to her chest, Aunt Marge exhaled a gusty, “Oh thank heavens. Now, all we need are munchkins. I,” she told me proudly, “will be the wicked witch. I’m handing out apples!”

  The kids would definitely think that was wicked, in the sense of boy, that sucks.

  “Dorothy,” she said, putting a hand lightly on the girl’s shoulder, “will give out candy.”

  Dorothy, or whoever she was, blushed. She mumbled, got on her bicycle, and pedaled away fast.

  “Something I said?” I inquired lightly as I helped Aunt Marge close up the old carriage house.

  “It’s the situation with Josie’s daughter. The local teenagers are terrified of you.”

  I grinned. Aunt Marge tsk-tsked. Boris rubbed against
my leg, I’d like to think in pride.

  “As for Josie,” Aunt Marge went on as I held open the front door for her, “well, she’s going to get a talking-to from the ladies at church. You do not,” Aunt Marge seethed, “throw an animal into traffic.”

  Women fight differently than men. For one thing, they never declare war. They just…war. I almost felt sorry for Josie. I owed her. She’d shown me that my first reflex has to be to handcuff the perpetrator, not run into traffic to rescue Boris. Although, to be fair, if I’d thought of her at all in that terrifying moment when Boris’s little furry body sailed through the air, I’d likely have shot her.

  ***^***

  The first immediate benefit of having a full-time deputy was getting enough sleep. The second was a return to exercise. I like to jog a couple of miles a day, get in some work on the third-hand Nautilus machines in the cellar, and do some yoga. Keeps me fit and healthy without the noise and stress of a gym membership. Besides which, the nearest gym was a long drive. The county seat‌—‌Gilfoyle, as in Judge Gilfoyle’s family‌—‌has a population of about 1,200. And still doesn’t rate a Wal-Mart. So a fitness center wasn’t exactly likely in our county.

  I’d woken up in a snarling sort of mood that day, partly from worrying about Halloween. I don’t mind the usual mischief much, but there’s always someone who has to get nasty. We’ve had cats crucified or hanged, dogs tortured, and once a pile of animal entrails left on someone’s doorstep. Guys like Eddie Brady get drunk and decide it’s time to show everyone who’s boss by setting fire to a building, or ride around with their buddies blasting road signs and porch lights with shotguns. Then there’s the petty thievery while everyone’s at the parade.